THE  RELATION  OF  THE  PUBLIC  LANDS  TO  THE 
LABOR  PROBLEM  DURING  THE  PERIOD 
FROM  1830  TO  1860 


By 

WILLIAM  ALBERT  McCONAGHA 

B.  S.  Muskingum  College  1917 


THESIS 


SUBMITTED  IN  PARTIAL  FULFILLMENT  OF  THE  REQUIREMENTS 
FOR  THE  DEGREE  OF  MASTER  OF  ARTS  IN  ECONOMICS 
IN  THE  GRADUATE  SCHOOL  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  ILLINOIS,  1922 


\ 


URBANA,  ILLINOIS 


N\V5 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
THE  GRADUATE  SCHOOL 


-192 


I HEREBY  RECOMMEND  THAT  THE  THESIS  PREPARED  UNDER  MY 
SUPERVISION  BY  l/Jsl ^ f 


ENTITLED. 

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^Uon^v»J 


BE  ACCEPTED  AS  FULFILLING  THIS  PART  OF  THE  REQUIREMENTS  FOR 

• THE  DEGREE  OF 


f 


t.x.&u 


Charge  of  Thesis 


Head  of  Department 


Recommendation  concurred  in* * 


Committee 


on 


Final  Examination* 


Required  for  doctor’s  degree  but  not  for  master's 


..  : . ! ... 


. • 5 


' 


CONTENTS 


Page 


I.  Introduction 1 

II.  The  Economic  Condition  of  the  Working  People  . 3 

III.  Physical  Conditions  Deterring  Westward 

Expansion 10 

IV.  Movement  toward  Free  Land  for  Actual  Settlers  15 

V.  The  Awakening  of  the  Working  People 27 

VI.  Comparisons  and  Conclusions  36 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
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THE  RELATION  OF  THE  PUBLIC  LANDS  TO  THE  LABOR  PROBLEM 
DURING  THE  PERIOD  FROM  I83O  to  i860 

INTRODUCTION 

Albert  Gallatin,  speaking  before  the  Fourth  Congress  on  the  relation 
of  land  to  labor  in  the  United  States,  observed  that  if  the  cause  of  the  happi- 
ness of  this  country  were  enquired  into,  it  would  be  found  to  rise  as  much  from 
the  great  plenty  of  land  in  proportion  to  the  inhabitants  which  the  citizens 
enjoyed  as  from  the  wisdom  of  their  political  institutions.  "It  is  in  fact 
because  the  poor  man  has  always  been  able  to  attain  his  portion  of  land."  Mors 
than  three  quarters  of  a century  later  (1),  Henry  George  -writing  on  the  same 
subject  says;  "Wherever  you  find  land  relatively  low,  will  you  not  find  wages 
relatively  high?  And  where  yo  u find  land  high,  will  you  not  find  wages  low? 

As  land  increases  in  value  poverty  deepens  and  pauperism  appears.  In  new  set- 
tlements where  land  is  cheap  you  will  find  no  beggars  and  the  inequality  of  con- 
dition is  very  slight."  (2) 

Thus  far  the  effect  of  v/estern  lands  on  politics  and  the  character 
of  the  people  has  received  the  principal  attention  of  historians.  This,  however, 
does  not  seem  to  be  due  to  a lack  of  appreciation  on  the  part  of  either  contem- 
porary or  later  writers  of  its  economic  importance.  From  Chevalier,  writing 
on  American  society,  manners  and  politics  in  1836,  comes  the  observation  that 
"In  America,  as  in  Europe,  competition  among  the  head  workmen  tends  to  decrease 
their  wages,  but  the  tendency  is  not  increased  in  America  as  in  Europe  by  com- 
petition among  the  laborers;  that  is,  by  an  excess  of  hands  wanting  employ,  for 
the  West  stands  open  as  a refuge  for  all  unemployed."*  In  Europe  a coalition  of 
workers  can  only  signify  one  of  two  things:  "Raise  our  wages  or  we  shall  die 

of  hunger,"  or  "Raise  our  wages  or  we  shall  take  up  anas."  In  America,  on  the 


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other  hand,  such  a coalition  means,  "Raise  our  wages  or  we  go  to  the  West. "(3) 
Secretary  Walker  in  his  treasury  report  for  1845  declared  that 
"The  reduction  of  the  price  of  public  lands  in  favor  of  the  settlers  and  cul- 
tivators would  enhance  the  wages  of  labor.  If  those  who  lived  by  the  v/ages  of 
labor  could  purchase  320  acres  for  $80,  160  for  $40,  80  for  $20,  or  40  for  $10, 
the  power  of  manufacturing  capitalists  to  reduce  the  wages  of  labor  would  be 
greatly  diminished,  because  when  the  lands  are  thus  reduced  in  price  those  who 
live  by  the  v/ages  of  labor  could  purchase  farms  at  those  low  rates  and  cultivate 
the  soil  for  themselves  and  families,  instead  of  working  for  others  at  twelve 
hours  per  day  in  the  manufactories . (4)  John  R.  Commons  in  his  History  of  Labor 
in  the  United  States  writes  that  "The  condition  that  seems  to  distinguish  most 
clearly  the  history  of  labor  in  America  from  its  history  in  other  countries  is 
the  wide  expanse  of  free  land.  As  long  as  the  poor  and  industrious  can  escape 
from  the  conditions  which  render  them  subject  to  other  classes,  so  long  do  they 
refrain  from  that  aggression  on  the  property  rights  and  political  power  of 
others,  which  is  the  symptom  of  a labor  movement."  (5) 

Hart  suns  up  perhaps  the  general  attitude  of  writers  on  the  subject 
and  casual  thinkers  also  when  he  says,  "The  wilderness  ever  opened  a gate  to 
the  poor,  the  disconsolate  and  the  oppressed."  (6) 

That  the  extent  to  which  land  is  accessible  in  any  country  does 
have  a vital  bearing  on  its  social  and  economic  problems  seems  to  be  a logical 
assumption,  and  it  is  the  purpose  of  this  study  to  inquire  into  the  significance 
of  the  fact  that  during  the  period  from  I83O  to  i860  v/e  were  in  constant  contact 
with  a great  unbroken  frontier  which  moved  steadily  westward  with  the  flew  of 
population.  ’.I/hat  seems  to  be  the  popular  conception  of  this  relationship  has 
been  suggested.  Observe  now  the  extent  to  which  the  history  of  the  period  vin- 
dicates or  vitiates  that  idea. 


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Chapter  I 

In  I83O  the  total  area  of  the  United  States  was  1,793,4-00  square 
miles,  which  was  occupied  by  12,617,000  people,  including  free  blacks  and  slaves. 
Three- fourths  (approximately)  of  this  population  still  lived  along  the  seaboard, 
leaving  little  more  than  one- fourth  to  occupy  the  vast  trans-Appalachian  coun- 
try extending  west  to  the  Rocky  Mountains.  Only  628,000  square  miles  were  in- 
cluded in  the  then  settled  area  bounded  by  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  the  Gulf  of  Mex- 
ico, and  a tortuous  frontier  line  some  5,300  miles  in  length,  which  ran  across 
the  central  part  of  Maine,  along  the  international  boundary  from  New  Hampshire 
to  Detroit,  across  northern  Indiana  and  Illinois,  and  down  the  west  bank  of  the 
Mississippi  to  the  Gulf,  thus  leaving  still,  large  unsettled  tracts  in  northern 
Maine,  New  York  and  northv/estern  Pennsylvania.  Much  of  the  middle  v/est  had 
scarcely  passed  the  frontier  stage,  and  the  great  mass  of  the  Louisiana  Territory 
was  comparatively  untouched. 

For  the  purpose  of  this  study  it  might  now  be  profitable  to  turn 
from  this  brief  survey  of  the  extent  of  the  unoccupied  land  areas  to  a consider- 
ation of  the  social  and  economic  conditions  that  prevailed  in  the  already  settled 
portions  of  the  country  adjoining  them.  One  of  the  best  general  descriptions  of 
this  condition  is  given  by  McMaster.  Speaking  of  the  conditions  that  prevailed 
among  the  poor  and  laboring  class  during  the  period  from  1825  to  I83O,  he  says, 
(7)  "The  influx  'of  paupers  to  partake  of  the  benefits  of  many  charitable  socie- 
ties, the  overcrowded  labor  market,  the  steady  increasing  numbers  of  unemployed, 
the  congestion  of  population  in  limited  areas  and  all  its  attendant  vice  and 
crime  and  the  destitution  produced  by  low  wages  and  lack  of  constant  employment , 
have  already  become  a matter  for  serious  consideration.  An  unskilled  laborer 
was  fortunate  if  he  received  75^  for  twelve  hours'  work  and  found  employment 
for  three  hundred  days  a year.  Hundreds  were  glad  to  work  for  37£  and  even  25$ 


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a day  in  winter,  who  in  spring  and  summer  could  earn  62-g 0 or  perhaps  87-2'  by 
toiling  fourteen  hours  on  the  turnpikes  and  canals.  Fifteen  dollars  a month  in 
summer  and  board  was  considered  good  pay.  In  winter  it  was  not  uncommon  for 
men  to  work  for  their  board.  If  the  earnings  of  men  were  low,  those  of  women 
were  lower  yet.  Many  trades  and  professions  now  open  to  them  had  no  existence 
or  were  confined  to  men.  They  might  bind  shoes,  sew  rags,  fold  and  stitch  books, 
become  spoolers  or  make  coarse  shirts  and  duck  pantaloons  at  8 or  100  apiece. 

"To  the  desperate  poverty  produced  by  such  wages  many  evils  were 
attributed.  Intemperance  was  encouraged,  children  were  sent  into  the  streets 
to  beg  and  pilfer,  and  young  girls  were  driven  to  lives  of  shame  to  an  extent 
that  seems  almost  incredible  in  more  modern  times." 

The  editor  of  the  New  York  Commercial  advertiser  in  an  appeal  in 
behalf  of  the  impoverished  population  of  the  city  in  January,  1829,  said,  (8) 

"It  makes  my  heart  bleed  to  look  at  the  hundreds  and  thousands  of  shivering, 
hungry  applicants  for  charity  v/ho  have  thronged  the  old  almshouse  in  the  park 
this  afternoon."  A correspondent  to  the  New  York  Times  speaks  of  thousands  of 
industrious  mechanics  v/ho,  unable  to  provide  food  and  clothing  for  their  fami- 
lies, were  applying  for  assistance.  The  significant  fact,  however,  is  that 
pointed  out  by  Hr.  Commons,  namely,  that  not  only  was  there  at  times  a great 
deal  of  unemployment  but  that  the  unskilled  at  least  suffered  constantly  from 
low  wages  and  long  hours. 

In  1829  the  Eoston  Prison  Discipline  Society  reported  that  about 
75,000  people  in  the  United  States  were  annually  imprisoned  for  debt.  In  I83O 
the  same  society  estimated  on  the  basis  of  returns  from  nearly  one  hundred 
prisons  in  different  parts  of  the  United  States  that  the  number  annually  im- 
prisoned for  debt  in  Massachusetts  was  3,000;  in  New  York,  10,000;  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, 7,000;  in  Maryland,  3,000,  and  in  the  other  northern  and  eastern  states 


nearly  as  above  in  proportion  to  the  population.  They  reported  furthermore  that 
the  number  imprisoned  for  debts  of  less  than  one  dollar  was  very  great,  the 
number  imprisoned  for  debts  between  five  and  twenty  dollars  was  greatest,  while 
the  number  imprisoned  for  more  than  twenty  and  less  than  one  hundred  dollars 
is  not  one-third  as  great  as  the  number  imprisoned  for  less  than  twenty  dollars. 

"A  report  by  the  citizens  of  Rochester,  New  York,  shortly  before 
this  time  showed  that  in  Monroe  County  during  a single  year  about  one  person  in 
every  ten  families  had  been  imprisoned  for  debt.  One  of  these  cases  w as  for 
25  cents.”  The  number  of  persons  imprisoned  for  debt  as  compared  to  the  number 
imprisoned  for  other  crimes  was  everywhere  very  high,  in  some  instances  at  a 
ratio  of  eight  to  one. 

The  jails  in  which  debtors  were  confined  were  often  overcrowded  and 
terribly  unsanitary.  Fuel  and  bedding  and  food  too,  with  the  exception  of  a 
daily  ration  of  soup,  were  sometimes  lacking.  In  some  instances  debtors  re- 
ceived much  worse  treatment  than  common  criminals. 

A consideration  of  these  conditions,  together  with  the  insignifi- 
cance of  the  debts  that  compelled  people  to  submit  to  them,  seems  again  to  indi- 
cate the  existence  of  a wide-spread  condition  of  wretchedness  and  poverty  among 
the  lower  and  laboring  classes  at  this  time. 

Not  only  does  it  appear  that  wages  were  low  and  employment  uncertain 
during  this  period,  but  under  employment  hours  were  exceedingly  long  and  irksome. 
Significant  in  this  connection  is  the  following  extract  from  the  Pennsylvanian. 
(9)  "The  excessive  labor  which  the  mechanic  is  forced  to  undergo  saps  his  con- 
stitution and  either  cuts  him  off  at  a period  of  existence  which  should  be  the 
prime  of  life,  or  leaves  him  linger  out  a few  years  more,  a miserable  wreck  of 
humanity.  Humanity  requires  us  not  to  abuse  the  brute  creation  by  over  labor, 
and  surely  our  fellow  man  is  entitled  to  as  much  consideration.  (Exhaustion  of 


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the  frame  requires  for  its  removal  excitement  fully  proportional  to  the  depres- 
sion, and  it  is  too  often  sought  in  alcohol.  It  has  been  ascertained  and  truly 
that  excessive  labor  has  been  the  cause  of  more  intemperance  than  all  other 
causes  combined.)  Although  this  may  seem  to  smack  somewhat  of  journalistic 
propoganda,  it  certainly  has  a basis  of  fact. 

M The  system  of  labor  from  sun  to  sun  had  been  taken  over  from  agri- 
culture where  conditions  were  entirely  different,  and  even  out-door  mechanics 
worked  from  sunrise  to  sunset  all  seasons.  In  winter  this  meant  comparatively 
short  hours,  but  as  wages  were  paid  by  the  de.y  regardless  of  the  season,  every 
inducement  existed  to  concentrate  all  possible  work  in  the  late  spring  and  sum- 
mer and  early  fall  when  the  days  were  long  and  men  could  be  required  to  work 
twelve  to  fifteen  hours.  As  a result  not  only  was  there  great  physical  strain 
during  the  summer  months,  but  during  the  short  winter  days  hundreds  of  building 
trades  mechanics  were  unemployed."  (10) 

In  discussing  the  hours  of  labor  in  the  cotton  mills  at  Lowell, 
the  cotton  manufacturing  center  of  the  United  States,  during  the  decade  of  the 
thirties,  James  Montgomery  says:  (11)  "From  the  first  of  September  to  the 

first  of  May,  work  is  commenced  in  the  morning  as  soon  as  the  hands  can  see  to 
advantage,  and  stopped  regularly  during  those  eight  months  at  seven-thirty  in 
the  evening.  During  the  four  summer  months,  or  from  the  first  of  May  to  the 
first  of  September,  work  is  commenced  at  five  o’clock  in  the  morning  and  stopped 
at  seven  in  the  evening.  Forty- five  minutes  is  allowed  for  dinner  during  the 
summer  months  and  thirty  during  the  other  eight.  About  73§-  hours  per  week  may 
be  regarded  as  the  average  hours  of  labor  in  the  cotton  mills  at  Lowell  and 
generally  throughout  the  whole  eastern  district  of  the  United  States.  In  many, 
perhaps  the  majority,  of  the  cotton  factories  in  the  middle  and  southern  dis- 
tricts, the  hours  of  labor  in  summer  are  from  sunrise  to  sunset  or  from  half 


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past  four  in  the  morning  till  half  past  seven  in  the  evening,  being  about  thir- 
teen and  throe-fourths  hours  per  day,  equal  to  eighty-two  and  one-half  hours 
per  week.'* 

In  contrast  to  these  conditions  it  might  be  noted  that  at  this 
time  "in  Great  Britain  the  hours  of  labor  per  week  were  limited  by  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment to  69  or  11-g-  hours  per  day,  but  the  general  regulation  in  all  factories  is 
nine  hours  on  Saturday  and  twelve  hours  on  each  of  the  other  five  days." 

One  American  workman, lately  arrived  from  England  and  quoted  in  the 
Mechanics  Free  Press  for  August,  I83O,  avers  that  in  America  after  paying  for 
board  and  washing  he  had  $4.63  per  week  left,  while  in  England  he  would  have  the 
same  amount  left,  whose  buying  capacity  would  be  one-third  more,  which  would  be 
earned  with  fifteen  hours  per  v/eel;  less  labor. 

Thus  far  our  attention  has  been  directed  to  a consideration  of  the 
conditions  that  prevailed  among  the  working  classes  near  IS30  or  about  the  time 
of  the  beginning  of  the  period  of  this  study.  That  these  conditions  should 
have  remained  during  all  the  subsequent  years  of  this  period  equally  unfavorable 
would  be,  as  we  shall  try  to  show',  illogical  to  expect,  and  we  believe  as  a mat- 
ter of  historical  fact,  quite  easy  to  deny;  and  yet  a few  random  observations 
tend  to  impress  one  v/ith  the  fact  that  the  condition  of  labor  in  the  United 
States  throughout  the  entire  period  remained  somewhat  inconsistent  with  the  idea 
that  an  abundance  of  cheap  public  land  precludes  the  idea  of  a labor  problem  in 
so  far  as  that  problem  is  a question  of  freeing  the  laboring  classes  from  op- 
pressive working  conditions  or  capitalistic  exploitation. 

For  example,  (12)  in  1845  we  find  the  women  of  New  York  City  work- 
ing for  from  ten  to  eighteen  cents  per  day,  some  of  the  most  proficient  receiv- 
ing twenty-five,  an  amount  on  which  it  was  impossible  to  live  decently  and 
honestly.  "The  wages  of  unskilled  laborers  in  New  York,  generally  Irishmen  just 


-8- 

from  the  old  world,  was  sixty-five  cents  a day.  Unable  to  live  and  procure 
lodging  on  three  dollars  and  ninety  cents  a week,  a number  of  them  employed  in 
Brooklyn  were  allowed  to  build  shanties  on  land  near  where  they  were  employed. 
The  Massachusetts  legislature  when  it  met  in  1844  received  a petition  from 
twenty-one  hundred  and  thirty-nine  operators  who  complained  of  long  hours  and 
unhealthy  rooms.  The  hours  complained  of  were  from  five  in  the  morning  until 
seven  in  the  evening  with  an  hour  and  a quarter  off  for  meals. 

In  1850  we  hear  a representative  of  the  German  immigration  saying, 
"We  came  here  because  v/e  v/ere  oppressed,  and  what  have  we  gained?  Nothing  but 
misery,  hunger  and  oppression."  (13) 

The  New  York  Herald  for  February  7,  1852,  declared  that  laborers  on 
public  works  v/ere  often  discharged  and  could  not  collect  wages,  sometimes  months 
over  due,  that  they  were  forced  to  work  from  sunrise  to  sunset  for  from  fifty 
to  seventy- five  cents,  and  that  they  v/ere  compelled  to  take  part  0?  this  in 
trade  at  small  liquor  and  victualing  stores  erected  along  the  line  of  public 
works.  (14) 

The  last  item  of  evidence  dealing  with  laboring  conditions  during 
this  period  is  from  the  writings  of  Trollope.  Speaking  of  conditions  in  the 
middle  west  just  before  the  Civil  War,  he  said,  (15)  "The  laboring  Irish  in 
these  towns  eat  meat  seven  days  a week,  but  I have  met  many  a laboring  Irishman 
among  them  who  has  v/ished  himself  back  in  his  old  cabin.  There  is,  I think,  no 
task  master  over  free  labor  so  exacting  as  an  American.  He  knows  nothing  of 
hours  and  seems  to  have  that  idea  of  a man  which  a lady  alv/ays  has  of  a horse. 

He  thinks  he  will  go  forever.  I wish  those  masons  in  London  who  strike  for 
nine  hours’  work  with  ten  hours'  pay  could  be  driven  to  the  labor  market  of 
western  America  for  a spell.  American  workmen  are  driven  forward  at  this  work 
in  a manner  that  to  an  English  workman  v/ould  be  intolerable." 


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One  might  continue  almost  indefinitely  in  this  fashion.  If,  how- 
ever, the  testimony  offered  is  worthy  of  consideration,  this  should  be  suffic- 
ient to  help  to  some  conclusion.  If  worthless,  continuation  would  be  equally 
useless. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  much  of  the  evidence  presented  in  this 
chapter  has  centered  around  the  very  beginning  of  the  period,  and  yet  there  is 
nothing  to  indicate  that  those  were  abnormal  times,  certainly  not  abnormally 
depressed,  for  the  country  was  just  entering  on  that  period  of  abnormal  activity 
that  precipitated  the  crisis  of  1837. 

It  is  admitted  also  that  part  of  this  material  has  been  somewhat 
controversial  and  tinged  with  prejudice  doubtless  and  should  be  taken  according- 
ly "cum  grano  salis,"  and  yet  enough  remains,  we  believe,  to  amply  justify  the 
conclusion  that  during  the  first  part  especially  of  the  thirty  years'  period 
from  1830  to  i860,  distress  existed  among  the  laborers  of  America  to  an  extent 
that  is  quite  amazing,  especially  to  the  uninformed, and  seems  somewhat  at  var- 
iance with  the  original  assumption  that  an  abundance  of  land  offered  an  alterna- 
tive always  to  the  conditions  existing  within  the  industrial  sections  of  a 
country  and  thus  precluded  the  possibility  of  widespread  poverty  or  exploitation. 

That  ordinarily  or  ultimately  the  welfare  of  the  laboring  class  is 
conditioned  largely  by  the  possibility  of  their  escape  to  the  soil,  seems  too 
evident  to  need  discussion  or  demonstration.  That  the  abundances  of  public  land 
that  existed  during  this  period  failed  to  give  effective  relief  during  the 
whole  of  the  period,  seems  from  the  foregoing  data  equally  obvious.  The  next 
endeavor  then  will  be  to  discover  why  this  was  true. 


-10- 


Chapter  II 

Many  conditions  might  be  mentioned  that  acted  as  a check  to  the 
natural  tendency  to  migrate  from  the  older  industrial  sections  of  the  East  to 
the  unoccupied  territory  of  the  West  during  the  earlier  part  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  thus  tending  to  vitiate  also  the  idea  that  these  lands  formed  an  easy 
method  of  escape  from  any  conditions  that  became  unsatisfactory  in  the  original 
settlements. 

First,  it  might  be  v/orth  v/hile  to  consider  to  what  conditions  one 
escaped  who  left  the  mills  of  Mew  England  or  the  Middle  States  to  take  up  life 
in  the  frontier  districts  during  the  early  part  of  the  century.  Roosevelt  in 
hi  spinning  of  the  West”  states  it  concisely  when  he  says,(l6)  "To  push  the 
frontier  westward  in  the  teeth  of  the  forces  of  the  v/ilderness  was  fighting  work 
such  as  suited  well  enough  many  a stout  soldier  who  had  worn  the  blue  and  buff 
of  the  continental  line,  or  who  with  his  fellow  rough-riders  had  followed  in 
the  train  of  some  grim  partisan  leader." 

Stirring  as  this  picture  may  be  to  a man,  what  appeal,  one  might  ask, 
could  such  conditions  have  to  women  and  girls,  ever,  tho  they  were  being  worn 
out  in  the  cotton  mills  at  Lowell.  The  frontier  home  with  its  "hole  in  the 
roof  to  let  out  the  smoke  and  its  hole  in  the  door  to  let  in  the  pigs"  could 
scarcely  have  been  said  to  be  very  appealing  to  them,  "A  fine  place  for  men 
and  dogs,"  testified  the  wife  of  one  pioneer,  "but  a poor  place  for  women," 
many  of  whom  doubtless  "accompanied  their  husbands  from  a sense  of  duty  or 
necessity  while  secretly  pining  for  the  quie^ , orderly , friendly  society  to  which 
they  originally  bade  reluctant  farewell."  (17) 

Harriet  Martineau,  writing  her  impression  of  frontier  life  (1834  -6) 
says,  (18)  "None  of  the  graces  of  fixed  habitation  had  grown  up.  The  success 
of  his  (the  settler's)  after  life  can  hardly  atone  to  him  for  such  a destitution 


-11- 

of  comfort  as  I saw  him  in  the  midst  of." 

Not  only  did  the  pioneers  suffer  the  discomforts  of  privation,  but 
often  from  sickness  brought  on  by  their  manner  of  life  and  the  unhealthful  con- 
dition of  much  of  the  new  country.  "Too  often,"  observes  Trollope  (19)  "the 
pioneer  bore  on  his  lantern  jaws  the  signs  of  ague  and  sickness."  Indeed,  it 
is  well  known  that  "throughout  large  portions  of  the  western  country  fevers  and 
agues  and  stomach  troubles  beset  the  settlers.  As  to  remedies,  the  pioneers 
had  vigorous  constitutions,  otherwise  they  could  hardly  have  survived  the  com- 
bination of  disease  and  cure.  (20) 

Another  repressive  influence  which  prevented  a ready  movement  of 
population  from  centers  of  redundancy  or  conditions  otherwise  unfavorable  was 
that  utter  lack  during  most  of  the  first  quarter  of  the  century  of  transporta- 
tion facilities,  which  not  only  made  the  unsettled  west  difficult  of  access  but 
made  of  those  who  entered  it  virtual  exiles  from  the  older  portion  of  the  coun- 
try and  left  them  without  adequate  market  for  their  products. 

The  remoteness  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  from  the  Atlantic  seaboard 
before  the  influence  of  the  campaign  for  internal  improvements, that  was  so 
active  for  a decade  following  the  completion  of  the  Erie  Canal,  had  made  itself 
felt,  presents  a serious  obstacle  to  the  poor,  especially  from  New  England.  (21) 
To  relieve,  partially  at  least,  this  situation  a "rage"  for  turn- 
pikes struck  the  country  following  the  westward  expansion  after  the  Revolution- 
ary War.  New  York  alone  in  1811  chartered  one  hundred  and  thirty-seven  compan- 
ies to  build  4,500  miles  of  road.  This  general  movement  by  no  means  solved  the 
difficulty.  Roads  on  the  wholo  were  unspeakably  poor.-  sloughs  of  mire  during 
the  thawing  days  of  winter  and  spring  and  thick  with  dust  in  the  summer.  As 
late  as  1835  Miss  Martineau  defies  "pen,  pencil  or  malice  to  do  justice  to  the 
wreccnedness  oj  their  condition.  Transportation  costs,  as  a consequence,  re— 


-12- 


mained  enormous.  To  haul  a ton  from  Philadelphia  to  Pittsburgh  on  an  all  land 
route  cost  $125.  To  move  a bushel  of  salt  three  hundred  miles  over  any  road 
cost  $2.50.  For  wagoning  one  hundredweight  of  sugar  three  hundred  miles  the 
tariff  was  $5.00*  Taking  the  country  through,  it  may  be  said  that  to  transport 
goods  cost  $10  per  ton  per  hundred  miles.  The  cost  of  long  carriage  so  far  as 
many  products  were  concerned  v/as  simply  prohibitory.  (22) 

Those  who  lived  near  the  sea-coast  found  it  much  easier  and  more 
economical  to  ship  by  New  Orleans  such  articles  as  were  not  needed  on  the  road, 
especially  if  they  intended  to  settle  on  any  of  the  navigable  waters  of  the 
Mississippi  system,  than  to  carry  such  freight  overland  with  them.  (23)  In 
traveling  at  this  time  passengers  were  reckoned  as  so  much  freight,  so  that 
travel  was  not  only  difficult  but  very  expensive.  This  barrier  was  particularly 
effective  in  the  case  of  the  v/ould-be  emigrant  from  New  England.  (24) 

As  the  civilization  of  the  East  with  its  products  was  effectively 
cut  off  from  the  Y/est,  with  equal  completeness  v/as  the  West  cut  off  from  the 
potential  market  of  the  seaboard  states.  "Peltries,  ginseng,  and  whiskey  were 
almost  the  only  products  that  could  pay  their  cost  of  transportation  overland 
to  Philadelphia,  and  the  proceeds  derived  from  the  sale  of  these  were  suffici- 
ent only  to  purchase  things  of  first  necessity,  as  salt  and  gunpowder  and  in- 
dispensable articles  of  iron.  (25)  The  early  western  farmers  were  thus  per- 
force self-sustaining.  "The  women  made  the  clothes  from  the  wool,  the  flax,  or 
the  skin,  the  men  of  the  family  helping  in  the  heavier  work,  as  of  boat  making." 
(26)  Prices  of  produce  were  very  low.  At  Edwardsville  in  Illinois,  corn  sold 
for  from  twelve  and  a half  to  twenty  cents  a bushel.  Farther  inland,  the  con- 
ditions were  much  worse.  In  1824,  corn  might  be  bought  in  any  quantity  in  Cin- 
cinnati for  eight  cents  a bushel.  Wheat  yielded  twenty-five  cents,  while  flour 
sold  for  a dollar  and  a quarter  a barrel.  (27)  A cow  and  a calf  might  be 


-13- 


obtained  in  exchange  for  a bushel  of  salt.  Clearly,  the  settlement  of  the  West 
was  largely  conditioned  by  the  possibility  of  finding  ways  and  means  of  trans- 
portation. (28) 

Coincident  almost  with  the  realization  of  this  need  comes  an  era  of 
improvement  in  this  line,  such  as  has  never  been  equalled.  In  l8ll  Fulton's 
new  invention  was  introduced  on  Western  waters,  and  in  1817  the  first  steamboat 
voyage  was  made  from  New  Orleans  to  Louisville.  The  ability  of  this  new  instru- 
ment of  commerce  to  breast  the  current  of  the  Mississippi  being  once  established, 
traffic  grew  with  wonderful  rapidity.  In  1834  the  number  of  steamboats  on  the 
Mississippi  and  Ohio  Rivers  and  their  tributaries  was  ascertained  to  be  230, 
with  an  aggregate  carrying  capacity  of  39,000  tons.  In  1842  the  number  of  boats 
had  increased  to  about  450,  with  a carrying  capacity  of  something  more  than 
100,000  tons. 

In  the  meantime  steam  navigation  of  the  Great  Lakes  had  begun.  In 
I8l8  the  first  steamboat  was  built  on  Lake  Erie.  By  1833  eleven  small  steamers 
were  plying  on  the  upper  lakes.  This  number  had  grown  to  sixty  in  1845,  sup- 
plemented by  320  sailing  vessels  of  from  1,000  to  1,200  tons  each. 

(29)  Following  in  chronological  order,  the  next  important  step  in 
the  train  of  events  that  was  to  open  up  the  West  was  the  completion  in  1818  of 
the  Cumberland  Road  from  Cumberland,  Maryland,  to  Wheeling,  West  Virginia.  Well 
graded  and  constructed  of  stone  and  gravel,  Gallatin's  prophecy  that  over  it 
"ten  thousand  tons  would  be  carried  westward  annually  and  100,000  barrels  of 
flour  brought  back"  (30)  seems  quite  justified.  Immediately  after  its  opening 
it  did  become  one  of  the  chief  avenues  of  the  West,  and  Wheeling  was  made  for 
a time  the  entrepot  of  the  Ohio  Valley.  Its  importance,  however,  as  an  artery 
of  trade  was  soon  eclipsed  by  the  most  epoch  making  event  of  the  series  - the 
opening  of  the  Erie  Canal. 


-14- 


"Thanks  to  the  ability  and  persistent  endeavor  of  DeWitt  Clinton, 
the  problem  of  transportation  between  the  East  and  the  West  was  at  last  solved." 
(31)  No  other  single  work  in  the  United  States  has  ever  exerted  a greater  in- 
fluence on  the  prosperity  of  internal  trade.  Freight  rates  between  Buffalo  and 
Albany  were  reduced  90  percent,  almost  immediately.  An  idea  of  the  volume  of 
trade  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that  tolls  of  half  a million  dollars  were 
collected  immediately  upon  its  completion, and  before  a decade  has  passed  it  had 
paid  the  cost  of  its  construction.  (32) 

The  indirect  effects  of  the  Canal  were  no  less  remarkable,  Pennsyl- 
vania, awakened  by  the  danger  of  the  total  loss  of  western  trade,  began  in  1826 
an  extensive  system  of  canals  to  connect  Philadelphia  with  the  Ohio  River  and 
Great  Lakes.  Not  to  be  outdone,  Maryland  and  Virginia  agreed  in  1828  upon  the 
construction  of  a canal  from  tide-water  on  the  Potomac  to  the  Ohio,  while  at 
the  same  time,  dubious  of  the  success  of  a canal  over  such  a route,  some  Balti- 
more financiers, "putting  their  confidence  in  a new  and  almost  untried  transpor- 
tation device",  inaugurated  the  plan  of  building  a railroad  across  the  mountains 
to  win  for  Baltimore  a share  of  the  commerce  of  the  West . (33) 

By  I83O  it  was  evident  that  easy  communication  between  the  East  and 
the  West  was  assured.  There  v/ere  1,348  miles  of  canal  completed;  1,828  miles 
were  under  construction;  44  miles  of  railroad  had  been  completed;  697  had  been 
projected,  and  422  were  in  the  process  of  building.  So  great  was  the  transfor- 
mation wrought  by  these  improvements  that  Dunbar  speaks  of  those  who  lived  dur- 
ing the  early  decades  of  this  century  as  "the  last  pioneer  generation."  (34) 


-15- 

Chapter  III 

It  must  not  be  assumed  that  with  the  passing  of  the  problem  of 
transportation  and  communication,  all  barriers  to  free  emigration  to  the  West 
had  been  overcome,  for  such  was  not  the  case.  By  the  action  of  the  various 
states  the  land  to  be  occupied  had  become  a public  domain  under  the  control  of 
the  National  Government , and  without  its  approval,  not  one  foot  of  this  land 
might  be  occupied. 

The  history  of  the  attitude  of  our  Government  toward  the  dispotition 
of  its  public  lands  is  a varied  one.  "The  primary  use  of  fo eland,  according  to 
Bedes'  celebrated  spistle  to  Egbert,  was  to  reward  soldiers."  True  to  this 
traditional  policy,  it  appears  that  the  earliest  use  made  by  Congress  of  the  pub- 
lic lands  was  for  military  bounties.  As  early  as  August,  177 6 , it  promised  land 
bounties  to  deserters  from  the  British  Army,  and  a month  later  passed  an  act 
promising  land  to  officers  and  soliers  of  the  Continental  army  and  endeavored  by 
this  means  to  induce  men  to  enlist.  With  the  end  of  the  war  and  the  cession  by 
the  states  of  the  whole  of  the  conquered  domain  west  of  the  Alleghenies  to  the 
National  Government,  the  land  policy  of  Congress  seemed  naturally  to  resolve 
itself  into  two  alternatives.  Namely:  Shall  the  public  lands  be  administered 

from  the  standpoint  of  settlement  or  from  the  standpoint  of  finance?  A know- 
ledge of  the  condition  of  the  country  at  that  time  makes  the  answer  obvious. 

The  Revolutionary  War  had  wrecked  the  finances  of  the  states.  Commerce  had 
s.  faint  life.  Manufactures  had  not  come  into  being.  State  contributions  were 
often  attended  with  technical  difficulties.  Loans  accumulated  while  credit  was 
small.  Continental  paper  was  of  little  or  no  value.  Under  such  conditions  as 
these  it  seems  natural,  if  not  almost  inevitable,  that  Congress  should  view  the 
public  domain  primarily  as  a source  of  revenue.  That  this  is  true  may  be 
judged  by  the  very  tone  of  the  resolution  urging  cession  by  the  states  from 


-16- 


which  the  following  is  quoted.  "They  (the  states)  be  urged  that  the  war  now 
being  brought  to  a happy  termination  by  the  personal  services  of  our  soldiers, 
the  supplies  of  property  by  our  citizens  and  loans  of  money  from  them,  as  well 
as  from  foreigners,  these  several  creditors  have  a right  to  expect  that  funds 
shall  be  provided  on  which  they  may  rely  for  indemnification;  that  Congress 
shall  consider  vacant  territory  as  an  important  resource."  (35) 

This,  Hinsdale  observes,  was  almost  distinctly  a new  idea.  "In 
colonial  days  waste  land  had  not  proved  a source  of  income  to  either  the  col- 
onies or  the  crown."  (36)  A small  quit  rent  was  reserved  but  scarcely  ever 
paid.  "Virginia  imposed  an  annual  rental  of  two  cents  per  acre  upon  her  waste 
lands  and  then  threw  them  open  to  indiscriminate  locations.  Whole  states,  as 
West  Virginia,  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  were  disposed  of  without  affording  any 
public  revenue  whatever.  It  is  therefore  somewhat  difficult  to  understand  how 
the  idea  that  the  overmountain  land  would  be  a source  of  large  income  became 
current.  But  so  it  was."  Without  precedent,  evidently,  but  under  the  necessity 
of  relieving  somehow  the  pressing  financial  burden  incident  to  the  Revolution, 
relief  was  sought  from  the  public  lands. 

That  this  entire  domain  be  sold  or  mortgaged  to  foreign  states,  re- 
ceived but  scant  consideration.  That  would  be,  saidpeletiah  Webster,  "like 
killing  the  goose  that  laid  the  golden  egg  every  day,  in  order  to  tear  out  at 
once  all  that  was  in  her  belly,"  (37)  It  was  decided  rather  that  first  of  all 
the  ceded  territory  should  be  carefully  marked  off  from  the  unceded  and  intrus- 
ion on  it  should  be  rigidly  prohibited.  It  was  in  pursuance  of  this  policy  that 
Congress  twice  in  1737  instructed  the  military  to  move  against  the  unauthorized 
settlers.  Under  these  instructions,  a detachment  of  troops  moved  up  and  down 
the  right  bank  of  the  Ohio  River,  driving  out  the  settlers  and  burning  their 
log  cabins.  (38) 


-17- 


Since  the  public  lands  then  were  looked  upon  by  all  the  financiers 
of  this  period  as  an  asset  to  be  cashed  at  once  for  payment  of  the  current  ex- 
penses of  government  and  for  the  extinguishment  of  the  national  debt,  land 
legislation  began  to  shape  itself  accordingly. (39 ) 

The  Ordinance  of  1785  provided  for  the  sale  of  land  in  large  lots 
only,  to  first  purchasers,  to  be  resold  by  them  to  the  settlers  in  lots  more 
suitable  to  their  convenience.  Certainly  a discouraging  condition  of  sale  and 
tenure  when  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  the  settlors,  who,  if  they  availed 
themselves  of  the  opportunity  offered,  v/ere  compelled  to  expose  themselves  to 
possible  disaster  through  the  ignorance  or  trickery  of  the  capitalistic  pur- 
chasers. (40) 

About  one-half  of  the  state  of  Ohio  was  made  up  of  large  blocks 
of  land,  ranging  from  1,000,000  to  4,209,800  acres  in  size.  The  desire  being 
for  immediate  revenue,  no  credit  was  allowed  for  land  purchases.  "Payments 
could  be  made  either  in  specie  or  in  loan-office  certificates  reduced  to  specie 
value  on  their  scale  of  depreciation,  or  by  certificates  of  the  liquidated  debts 
of  the  United  States,  including  interest.  In  case  immediate  payment  was  not 
forthcoming,  the  land  was  to  be  again  offered  for  sale."  (41)  Attractive  as 

this  may  have  been  to  the  speculator  for  whom  the  West  had  long  been  a favorite 
field  of  endeavor,  (The  Ohio  Co.  was  formed  in  1742)  it  ignored  entirely  the 
wishes  of  the  men  who  were  moving  toward  that  region  and  had  the  greatest  inter- 
est in  the  lands.  What  they  desired  was  cheap  lands  in  small  tracts  without 
delay,  whereas  the  system  in  favor  called  for  expensive  surveys,  taking  much 
tine  for  execution.  No  land  offices  existed  in  the  West  itself  except  the  one 
at  Pittsburg;  the  smallest  tract  obtainable  was  640  acres  at  one  dollar  per 
acre,  plu3  the  cost  of  survey,  and  only  half  the  townships  were  offered  in  this 
way.  Furthermore,  since  rivers  were  the  only  highv/ays  of  the  interior,  easy 


-18- 

access  to  then  was  of  greatest  importance.  The  surveys  left  this  fact  entirely 
out  of  consideration.  The  Seven  Ranges  extended  forty-two  miles  inland  at  one 
point.  It  is  scarcely  to  be  wondered  at,  that  the  sale  of  land  to  actual  set- 
tlers under  the  Ordinance  of  1785  was  insignificant.  (42) 

The  next  important  change  in  the  land  system  after  1785  was  the 
law  passed  in  179&,  the  first  land  ordinance  of  the  National  Congress.  (43) 
There  is  little  in  this  law  that  is  original,  nor  is  there  much  evident  weaken- 
ing from  the  old  financial  policy,  in  fact,  the  price  of  land  is  increased  to 
two  dollars  per  acre,  without  the  repeal  of  any  of  the  restrictive  measures  of 
the  original  act  in  compensation.  Even  yet,  as  pointed  out  by  Treat,  section 
lines  were  not  run,  which  made  it  difficult  for  the  purchasers  of  a section  to 
locate  it,  as  well  as  for  the  government  to  compute  the  size  of  the  fractional 
township  and  sections.  In  fact,  they  were  but  roughly  computed  and  sold  at  the 
buyer’s  risk.  That  under  such  conditions  the  typical  pioneer  would  or  could 
pay  f 1,280  for  a section  (the  minimum  amount  at  the  minimum  price)  is  too  much 
to  expect.  The  act  of  179&  was  "of  importance  mainly  as  a statement  of  prin- 
ciples, for  little  land  was  sold  under  it,” 

It  was  evident  that  if  Congress  insisted  on  selling  land  in  large 
tracts  it  must  either  reduce  the  price  or  extend  the  credit,  and  if  it  wished 
to  sell  to  the  settlers  it  must  reduce  the  price  or  the  size  of  the  minimum 
tract.  So  poor  had  been  the  sale  in  the  period  passed  that  the  new  act  passed 
in  1800  showed  some  important  developments  in  this  direction.  (44)  They  were 
principally  the  establishment  of  land  offices,  the  extension  of  credit  and  the 
reduction  of  the  size  of  the  tracts.  The  land  offices,  located  at  Cincinnati, 
Chillicothe,  Marietta  and  Steubenville,  brought  the  place  of  sale  within  the 
reach  of  the  would-be  purchaser.  (45)  The  credit  system  extending  over  a 
period  of  four  years,  (later  extended  to  five)  coupled  with  a reduction  of  the 


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-19* 


minimum  tracts  offered  to  320  acres,  made  it  possible  for  settlers  to  have  the 
use  of  that  amount  for  five  years  for  $160,  even  tho  they  might  not  be  able  to 
hold  it  ultimately  by  paying  the  balance.  This  credit  feature  seemed  quite 
alluring,  and  the  land  system  under  this  act  became  a real  factor  in  the  west- 
ward movement.  It  regulated  the  sale  of  public  land  for  twenty  years,  being 
modified  only  as  to  the  computation  of  interest  charges,  by  the  introduction  of 
quarter-section  tracts  in  1804,  and  a limited  number  of  eighty-acre  tracts  in 
1817. 

Throughout  the  whole  of  its  existence  thus  far,  the  public  domain 
had  been  administered  as  a source  of  revenue  primarily,  the  wishes  of  the  settl- 
ers being  of  secondary  importance.  That  this  attitude,  so  strong  at  first, 
should  have  persisted,  is  not  unnatural.  National  legislation  was  being  domina- 
ted by  eastern  influence.  Land  values  in  the  East  were  being  endangered  by  the 
competition  of  the  opening  West.  It  was  also  feared  that  cheapened  lands  with 
the  resultant  flow  of  population  from  the  seaboard  states  would  cause  a scarcity 
of  labor  and  a rising  wage  scale  in  the  industrial  sections. 

The  credit  policy  of  the  Act  of  1800,  while  passed  doubtless  for 
the  special  benefit  of  the  settlers,  was  of  doubtful  value.  Too  often  it  in- 
duced them  to  expend  their  last  cent  in  making  the  first  payment,  under  the  im- 
pression that  by  means  of  the  produce  of  the  lands  they  would  be  able  to  meet 
the  balances  as  they  came  due.  In  this  they  were  disappointed.  This  new  land 
was  not  immediately  highly  productive.  Many  of  the  settlers  consequently 
found  themselves  unable  to  meet  their  later  installments.  On  September  30,  I8I9, 
more  than  $21,000,000  was  to  be  collected  for  these  lands.  More  than  $500,000 
had  already  been  forfeited  to  the  Government.  Speculators,  too,  were  taking 
advantage  of  the  credit  provisions  to  gain  an  option  on  the  better  land.  A 
change  was  becoming  necessary.  (46) 


, 


. 


- 


, 


. 


. 


K 

. 

...  . \ 

. 


* 


- 


, . . ...  . ’ 

. 1 3 . 


. . ■ 


-20- 


A new  act  ’was  drawn  up  and  signed  on  April  24,  1820,  "The  most 
important  piece  of  land  legislation  since  the  Congress  of  the  Confederation 
laid  down  the  principle  of  the  American  land  system  in  1785." (4 7)  This  act 
provided  for  the  abolition  of  credit  and  the  establishment  of  ca3h  sales  arter 
July  1,  1820,  for  the  sale  of  eighty-acre  tracts, and  for  the  reduction  of  the 
minimum  price  to  $1.25  per  acre.  By  this  act  the  speculators  found  their  dreams 
of  fattening  on  the  unearned  increment  of  a growing  country  curtailed,  while 
the  settler  for  $100  could  now  purchase  a farm  outright,  which  under  the  old 
system  would  have  furnished  little  more  than  the  first  payment  on  a quarter- 
section  tract. 

While  the  old  revenue  attitude  toward  the  public  domain  continued 
in  the  older  sections,  that  its  force  was  steadily  weakening  is  evidenced  by 
this  law  of  1820,  the  beginning  really  of  a new  era  in  the  history  of  our  land 
policy.  The  question  of  the  welfare  of  the  settlers  had  risen  much  in  relative 
importance,  end  from  this  time  on  may  be  safely  said  to  have  had  equal,  if  not 
first,  consideration. 

This  change  of  attitude  is  revealed  again  by  a series  of  relief  acts, 
beginning  March  2,  1821.  As  has  been  already  suggested,  many  pioneers,  under- 
estimating the  difficulty  of  realizing  a quick  return  from  the  products  of  their 
western  farms,  were  finding  themselves  unable  to  pay  the  final  installments  of 
their  purchase.  If  arrears  were  not  paid,  the  lav/  had  to  take  its  course,  and 
the  land  reverted  to  the  government.  "To  eject  unfortunate  settlers  from  their 
lands  and  log  cabins  must  have  seemed  to  the  pioneers  an  inhuman  thing."  (48) 

The  lav/,  however,  had  to  be  executed  until  relief  came.  Beginning  with  March  2, 
1821,  eleven  different  acts  were  passed  in  as  many  years  to  ease  the  terms  of 
credit  to  the  bankrupt  western  farmers.  A discrimination  in  come  respects 
against  the  faithful  purchasers,  and  a concession  to  the  speculators,  these  acts 


-21- 


nevertheless  prevented  almost  half  the  land  perhaps  settled  under  the  act  of 
1800  from  reverting  back  to  the  government,  rendering  its  occupants  landless  and 
homeless . 

There  is  finally  a changing  attitude  on  the  question  of  pre-emption 
to  take  care  of  the  long  and  insistent  demand  of  the  squatters.  The  squatting 
evil,  for  such  it  was  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  held  a revenue  policy  at  least, 
represents  one  of  the  oldest  things  in  American  life,  going  back  to  the  very 
first  years  of  colonial  history.  Squatting  on  waste  land  was  a right  and  the 
squatter's  point  of  view  was  that  laws  interfering  with  this  right  were  unjust 
and  of  no  effect.  It  is  a v/ell  known  fact  that  the  tide  of  immigration  always 
preceded  the  surveys  and  land  sales  authorized  by  the  Government,  and  the  cry 
for  pre-emption  was  the  cry  of  those  hardy  pioneers  to  have  more  of  the  benefits 
of  their  enterprise  secured  to  them.  The  attitude  of  3tern  repression  at  first 
adopted  toward  them  has  been  already  mentioned.  Here  again  the  public  mind  was 
undergoing  evolution.  (49) 

Pre-emption,  quoting  from  the  "Public  Domain",  "is  a premium  in 
favor  of  and  condition  for  making  a permanent  settlement  and  a home.  It  is  a 
preference  for  actual  tilling  and  residing  upon  a piece  of  land."  It  was  not  a 
free  grant  of  land  but  the  giving  to  a settler  of  the  privilege  of  purchasing 
land  as  against  competition.  "It  amounts  simply  to  the  exclusion  of  competition 
and  the  purchase  of  land  at  a minimum  or  double  minimum,  as  the  case  may  require. 
The  first  general  pre-emption  act  was  passed  May  29,  1830.  By  this  act  every 
settler  or  occupant  of  the  public  lands  after  giving  due  proof  of  settlement  or 
improvement  was  allowed  to  enter  in  the  register  of  the  land  office  any  number 
of  acres  up  to  a quarter  section  at  the  established  minimum  price  of  $1.25  per 
acre.  This  act,  however,  was  but  a temporary  measure.  The  first  general  and 
permanent  pre-emption  act  was  not  passed  until  1841.  This  act  marked  the  last 


, 


. 


. 


y 


"3 

> 

J-  . . 

■ X - 


. 


« 


-22- 


great  step  in  the  evolution  of  legislation  from  the  purely  revenue  attitude  to 
the  idea  of  free  grants  of  land  to  actual  settlers,  which  was  realized  with  the 
Homestead  Law  of  1362.  (50) 

The  change  witnessed  thus  far  had  been  very  gradual,  the  result  of 
experience  as  well  as  of  changed  conditions.  The  suffering  of  land  purchasers 
under  the  credit  system,  the  failure  to  realize  any  considerable  revenue  from 
the  cash  sale,  the  increasing  prosperity  of  the  country  from  commerce  and  manu- 
facture, all  these  causes  combined  to  mould  public  opinion  and  shape  the  ultimate 
policy  of  homesteads  for  the  actual  settlers.  The  extent  to  v/hich  the  flow  of 
population  toward  the  West  was  checked  by  this  unfavorable  early  legislation 
cannot,  of  course,  be  accurately  determined.  (51)  That  it  had  a deterrent  in- 
fluence certainly  could  not  be  denied.  A comparison  of  the  1820  population  of 
nine  'western  states  settled  under  the  acts  that  have  been  mentioned  with  the 
population  of  two  which  escaped  those  restrictions  should  prove  enlightening. 

Under  national  regulation: 


Ohio  

....  581,295 

Indiana  

Illinois  

....  55,162 

Michigan  

....  8,764 

Mississippi  .. 

....  75,448 

Alabama  

.. ..  127,901 

Louisiana  . . . . 

....  152,923 

Missouri  

Arkansas  

....  14,255 

Total  

. 1,229,484 

States  independent  of  national  regulation: 

Kentucky  422,771 

Tennessee  564. 135 

Total  986,906 

Relative  to  this  situation,  Treat  says  that  altho  settlers  were  mov- 
ing into  the  public  domain  north  and  south  of  the  Ohio  River  and  west  of  the 


-23- 


Mississippi,  that  it  must  be  remembered,  that  only  a portion  of  these  people 
were  holding  lands  purchased  at  the  land  offices,  and  that  of  the  settlers 
west  of  the  Appalachians  in  1820  fully  one-half  had  taken  up  lands  in  regions 
that  had  never  come  under  the  land  system  - notably  Kentucky  and  Tennessee. 

And  of  the  settlors  in  the  public  land  states  and  territories,  the  greater  part 
were  located  on  land  which  had  not  been  surveyed  and  sold  under  the  general 
land  system.  (52) 

Another  set  of  figures  from  which  it  is  possible  to  make  some  de- 
ductions is  the  record  of  receipts  from  land  sales  during  a large  part  of  this 
period.  (53) 


Year 

Amount 

Year 

Amount 

1801 

$168,125 

1822 

$1,803,581 

1802 

188 , 628 

1823 

916,523 

1803 

165,675 

1824 

984,418 

1804 

487,526 

1825 

1,216,090 

1805 

540,192 

1826 

1,393,785 

1806 

765,245 

1827 

1,497,053 

1807 

466, 163 

1828 

1,018,308 

1808 

647,939 

1829 

1,517,175 

1809 

442,252 

1830 

2,329,356 

1810 

696 , 548 

1831 

3,210,815 

1811 

1,040,237 

1832 

2,623,331 

1812 

710,427 

1833 

3,967,631 

1813 

835,655 

1834 

4,857,600 

1814 

1,135,971 

1835 

14,757,600 

1815 

1,287,959 

1836 

24,641,979 

1816 

1,717,985 

1837 

6,770,036 

1817 

1,991,226 

1838 

3,081,939 

1818 

2 , 606,564 

1839 

7,076,447 

1819 

3,274,442 

1840 

3,292,220 

1820 

1,635,871 

1841 

1,363,090 

1821 

1,212,966 

Signal  as  xne  victory  of  1841  may  have  seemed,  it  soon  became  evi- 
dent that  it  was  not  by  any  means  complete.  The  evil  of  speculation,  so  preva- 
lent under  former  systems,  while  somewhat  mitigated,  was  not  by  any  means  de- 
stroyed. Through  his  superior  financial  resources  and  ability  to  employ  shrewd 
men  to  locate  the  choicest  lands,  the  speculator  sill  had  an  advantage  over  the 


-24- 

settler  that  could  scarcely  be  overcone.  (54)  "Hi3  agents  were  instructed  to 
select  those  tracts  most  likely  to  advance  most  rapidly  in  value,  due  to  advan- 
tageous situation,  excellence  of  soils,  minerals,  water  power,  or  with  reference 
to  settlements  already  made;  and  as  a result  when  the  land  sales  opened,  he  knew 
exactly  what  tracts  were  unoccupied  and  of  greatest  value." 

The  St.  Anthony  (Minn.)  Express  said  in  1852:  We  have  a set  of 

speculators,  land  sharks,  Shylocks,  in  this  Territory  who  have  bought  all  the 
land  in  close  proximity  to  the  villages  and  refuse  to  sell  it  except  at  a consid- 
erable advance  on  government  price.  As  a result  of  the  general  acquisition 
throughout  the  West  of  large  tracts  of  land  by  non-residents,  settlers  who  wanted 
cheap  land  had  to  go  farther  still  into  the  wilderness,  away  from  society  and 
market  where  their  lot,  normally  a hard  one,  became  increasingly  burdensome. 

One  of  the  contributing  causes  to  this  speculation  was  the  general 
practice  on  the  part  of  the  Federal  Government  of  issuing  land  grants  as  bounties 
to  soldiers.  Since  many  of  these  could  not  or  would  not  locate  in  the  West, 
these  warrants  were  sold,  ordinarily  to  land  speculators,  and  became  an  article 
of  commerce,  bought  and  sold  on  the  market  just  as  railway  stocks  are  today, and 
in  anticipation  of  the  opening  of  a new  land  office  were  "salted  down"  in  large 
quantities  by  this  same  class  of  men. (55)  The  scope  of  their  activities  may  be 
judged  from  the  following  extract  from  the  St.  Anthony  Express: 

"Nearly  200,000  land  warrants  yet  remain  to  be  located.  If  assign- 
able, not  more  than  one-third  of  one- fourth  of  these  will  be  located  by  the 
original  holders.  Land  sharks  will  swallow  all  the  rest  and  disgorge  them,  pol- 
luted by  their  blighting  touch,  upon  the  fairest  portions  of  our  Territory. 

Instead  of  boats  swarming  with  an  energetic,  hardy  and  industrious  crowd  of  far- 
mers and  mechanics,  they  will  be  encumbered  by  the  agents  of  eastern  millionaires, 
their  pockets  stuffed  with  warrants,  who  like  the  flies  that  come  upon  the  borders 


-25- 


of  Egypt  will  cause  the  land  to  stink.” 

Greeley,  writing  from  Wisconsin  Territory  in  1849,  emphasizes  the 
same  condition.  Wherever, he  says,  upon  a natural  harbor,  a bay,  a head  of  navi- 
gation, or  a waterfall,  a village  began  or  promised  to  spring  up,  the  speculator 
or  his  agent  pounced  upon  all  the  unoccupied  lands  within  a circuit  of  a mile  or 
two.  "This  he  would  hold  for  a price,  treble  or  sixty-fold  what  he  had  paid 
for  it.”  (56) 

There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  conditions  described  were 
peculiar  to  Wisconsin  or  Minnesota.  Against  the  aggressions  of  eastern  capital, 
the  home  makers  were  fighiing  a discouraging,  often  a losing,  battle,  for  often 
the  necessary  amount  had  been  expended  by  them  in  building  cabins  and  in  stock- 
ing farms,  most  of  them  were  penniless.  And  if  the  claim  happened  to  be  located 
in  a section  that  had  been  proclaimed  for  sale,  it  was  likely  to  be  purchased 
after  a year  by  anyone  who  chose  to  buy  it,  unless  protected  by  public  opinion 
or  a claim  association.  Such  conditions  as  these,  it  is  obvious,  would  not  be 
tolerated  willingly  and  so  an  insistent  demand  began  to  arise  for  a law  that 
would  reserve  the  public  domain  for  actual  settlers.  (57) 

On  January  3,  1845,  a petition  was  presented  to  Congress,  asking 
that  it  pass  "with  all  convenient  haste,  a law  by  which  every  citizen  who  may  be 
desirous  of  cultivating  the  earth  for  a living  shall  be  enabled  to  enter  upon  the 
public  lands  and  occupy  a reasonable  sized  farm  thereon,  free  of  cost.”  During 
the  first  session  of  the  Twenty-ninth  Congress  three  men  introduced  independent 
homestead  bills,  authorizing  every  poor  man  in  the  United  States  who  is  at  the 
head  of  a family  to  enter  160  acres  of  public  domain  without  money  and  without 
price. 

The  history  of  the  appearance  and  reappearance  of  homestead  bills 
in  Congre33,  of  how  the  land  question  became  merged  into  the  greater  problem 


-26- 


of  slave  soil  or  free,  and  how  it  wa3  finally  passed  largely  as  a sectional  anti- 
slavery issue  - all  this  would  be  perhaps  somewhat  irrelevant  to  our  discussion. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  pre-emption  law  of  1841  with  its  attendant  evils, 
already  briefly  described,  governed  the  method  of  land  disposal  in  the  West  for 
more  than  two  decades  and  that  in  this  time  no  relief  was  given  from  the  activities 
of  land  sharks  and  speculators.  On  the  other  hand,  when  it  became  known  that  in 
every  congress  from  1847  until  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  general  bounty  bills 
were  presented  and  that  four  of  them  became  laws,  it  appears  that  through  part  of 
this  period  at  least,  the  field  for  this  evil  machination  was  being  extended. 


- 


. *' 


, 


, 


. 


-27- 


Chapter  IV 

Reflected  by  and  from  the  legislative  activities  that  have  been 
considered,  and  playing  always,  if  somewhat  intangible,  yet,  an  important  part 
in  this  whole  problem  was  the  degree  to  which  the  rank  and  file  became  alive  to 
the  possibilities  offered  by  the  West  as  a solution  for  their  social  and  indus- 
trial ills.  To  us  from  the  vantage  ground  of  a later  period,  this  connection 
seems  so  evident  that  one  would  be  led  to  assume  that  its  significance  had  al- 
ways been  a matter  of  general  recognition.  This  is  not  strictly  correct,  how- 
ever, for  altho  it  was  doubtless  patent  to  some,  yet  it  is  evident  that  if 
realized  at  all  by  the  great  mass  of  people,  throughout  a very  considerable  part 
of  our  early  history,  it  was  in  a very  vague  and  passive  fashion.  Until  this 
idea  became  an  active  motivating  one,  it  is  evident  also  that  the  evolution  of 
transportation  or  legislation  or  the  removal  of  any  other  barrier  to  the  west- 
ward flow  of  population  must  have  remained  quite  useless.  The  awakening  of  this 
active  interest  and  its  spread  in  scope  and  intensity  presents  itself  as  a part 
of  the  general  field  for  investigation  in  our  general  problem. 

Two  forces  are  at  once  observed  at  work  here,  each  almost  equally 
active.  The  one,  the  social  reformer  of  the  East  who  upholds  and  propogates 
the  idea  of  cheap  lands  made  available  to  actual  settlers,  for  its  effect  on 
social  conditions  among  the  working  classes.  The  other,  western  men  who  would 
induce  a flow  of  industrial  population  from  the  East  to  hasten  the  growth  of 
that  section  of  the  country. 

There  is  evidence  that  already  in  the  late  twenties  social  reformers 
were  beginning  to  contend  for  free  access  to  the  public  lands  in  order  to  amel- 
iorate the  condition  of  the  working  man.  The  sale  of  lands,  they  began  to  see, 
was  injurious  to  the  laboring  classes  because  few  of  them  possessed  sufficient 
capital  to  buy  it.  If, in  place  of  selling  the  land,  it  were  to  be  given  free 


-28- 


to  actual  settlers,  it  would,  they  contended,  bring  a freehold  and  independence 
within  reach  of  all.  As  early  as  1828,  the  Mechanics  Free  Press  contained  a 
memorial  to  Congree  proposing  that  Public  land  should  no  longer  be  sold  but  sug- 
gested to  Congress  "the  propriety  of  placing  all  public  lands  without  the  delay 
of  sales  within  the  reach  of  the  people  at  large  by  title  of  company  only  . . . 
and  therefore  pray  your  honorable  body  to  enact  a law  authorizing  a grant  to  any 
individual  who  shall  apply  for  it,  of  a free  use  of  so  much  of  the  public  land 
as  you  in  your  wisdom  shall  deem  sufficient." 

Two  years  before  this  tine,  Thos.  H.  Benton  expressed  the  attitude 
of  the  West  toward  the  repressive  revenue  attitude  of  the  East  (in  Congress) 
when  he  said,  "I  speak  to  statesmen  and  not  to  conpting  clerks;  to  senators  and 
not  to  quaestors  of  provinces;  to  an  assembly  of  legislators  and  not  to  a keeper 
of  the  King’s  forests.  I speak  to  senators  who  know  this  to  be  a Republic,  not 
a Monarchy;  who  know  that  the  public  lands  belong  to  the  people  and  not  to  the 
Federal  Government.”  (58) 

John  R.  Commons,  in  his  discussion  of  this  question,  suggests  that 
it  was  during  the  time  of  hardship  to  labor  as  a result  of  the  rapidly  rising 
prices  just  prior  to  the  panic  of  1837  that  the  importance  of  the  public  lands 
dawned  upon  the  workingmen,  and  it  began  to  be  evident  to  them  that  one  reason 
why  their  wages  did  not  rise  and  their  strikes  were  ineffective  was  because  they 
were  cut  off  from  escape  to  the  land  by  existing  conditions.  Speaking  of  the 
importance  of  this  growing  sentiment,  he  further  says,  (59)  "In  their  conventions 
and  papers,  therefore,  they  (the  workingmen)  demanded  that  the  lands  should  no 
more  be  treated  as  a source  of  public  revenue  to  relieve  taxpayers,  but  should  be 
treated  as  an  instrument  of  social  reform  to  raise  the  wages  of  labor."  And  when 
we  in  later  years  refer  to  our  wide  domain  and  our  great  natural  resources  as 
reasons  for  higher  wages  in  this  country,  it  is  well  to  remember  that  access  to 


' 


-29- 


these  resources  was  secured  only  by  agitation  and  act  of  legislature.  Not  merely 
as  a gift  of  nature,  but  mainly  as  a demand  of  democracy  have  the  nation's  re- 
sources contributed  to  the  elevation  of  labor.  And  it  was  in  the  events  of  1827 
to  1837  with  their  futile  immediate  results  that  the  lesson  was  learned  which 
in  a later  day  led  the  nation's  industrial  democracy  even  to  civil  war  in  order 
to  establish  the  freedom  of  the  public  lands. 

Responsible  doubtless  in  a large  measure  for  the  beginning  of  this 
heightened  interest  in  the  public  lands  among  the  working  people  and  helping  to 
mark  therefore  the  beginning  of  the  general  agitation,  was  the  appearance  of  the 
Workingman's  Advocate  in  1825,  published  by  George  and  Henry  Evans.  This  maga- 
zine, published  in  New  York  City  during  the  five  year  period  from  1825  - 1330, 
may  perhaps  be  said  to  be  the  first  appearance  of  a representative  of  the  labor 
press  in  the  United  States.  It  was  succeeded  by  "The  Daily  Sentinel"  and  finally 
by  "Young  America."  The  demands  of  the  representatives  of  labor  printed  in 
Young  America,  altho  extremely  radical,  were  endorsed  by  some  six  hundred  papers 
and  have  since  in  some  instances  been  granted.  An  enumeration  of  some  of  them 
will  show  how  thoroughly  its  readers  were  being  impressed  with  the  relation  that 
exists  between  land  and  conditions  of  labor.  (60) 

First  of  all  was:  The  right  of  man  to  the  soil,  "Vote  yourself  a 

farm."  Another  was, "Freedom  of  public  lands."  Another,  "Homesteads  made  inalien- 
able." Still  another  was,  "Land  limitation  to  160  acres."  Four  out  of  twelve 
demands  dealt  with  the  land  situation. 

To  deal  in  a comprehensive  fashion  with  the  spread  of  this  agitation 
until  its  climax  is  reached  and  its  goal  attained  in  the  Homestead  Act  of  1862 
is  beyond  the  scope  of  this  endeavor.  Vfhat  follows  is  rather  random  bits  of  in- 
formation that  tend  to  mark  here  and  there  its  progress. 

At  the  convention  of  the  "National  Trades  Union,"  held  in  1834, 


-30- 


wit  h delegates  from  Massachusetts,  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey  and  New  York,  the 
following  resolutions  were  offered:  (ol)  ’’Resolved,  that  this  convention  depre- 
cate the  system  now  practiced  in  the  disposal  of  the  public  lands  because  of 
its  violation  of  the  inherent  rights  of  the  citizen,  seeing  that  the  v/hole  of 
the  unseated  lands  belong  unto  the  people,  and  should  not  be  disposed  of  to  the 
prejudice  of  any  class  of  society.  Each  and  every  citizen  having  a just  claim 
to  an  equitable  portion  thereof,  a location  upon  which  being  the  only  just  title 
thereunto 

"Resolved,  that  this  convention  would  the  more  especially  reprobate 
the  sale  of  the  public  lands  because  of  its  injurious  tendency,  as  it  affects 
the  interests  and  independence  of  the  laboring  classes,  inasmuch  as  it  debars 
then  from  occupation  of  any  portion  of  the  same  unless  provided  with  an  amount 
of  capital  which  the  greater  portion  of  them  who  would  avail  themselves  of  this 
aid  to  arrive  at  personal  independence  cannot  hope  to  attain,  owing  to  the  many 
incroachments  made  upon  than  through  the  reduction  in  wages  of  labor  consequent 
upon  its  surplus  quantity  in  the  market,  which  surplus  would  be  drained  off  and 
a demand  for  the  produce  of  mechanical  labor  increased  if  these  public  lands 
were  left  to  actual  settlers." 

It  has  been  suggested  that  throughout  this  whole  period  one  of  the 
principal  agencies  for  fostering  and  disseminating  the  idea  that  free  access  to 
the  public  lands  furnished  a remedy  for  the  ills  of  which  labor  was  complaining, 
was  the  various  publications  of  the  Evans  Brothers.  The  following,  quoted  from 
the  Workingman* s Advocate  for  July  6,  1844,  will  show  the  tenor  of  their 
writing: 

"Let  an  outlet  be  formed  that  will  carry  off  our  super- abundant 
labor  to  the  salubrious  West . In  these  regions  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands 
who  are  now  languishing  in  hopeless  poverty  will  find  a certain  and  speedy  inde- 


-31- 


pendence.  The  labor  market  will  thus  be  freed  of  its  present  distressing  com- 
petition; and  those  who  remain,  as  well  as  those  who  leave,  will  have  the  op- 
portunity of  realizing  a comfortable  living." 

It  was  in  the  latter  part  of  1845  that  Horace  Greeley,  Editor  of 
the  Hew  York  Tribune,  began  to  notice  the  homestead  movement,  and  in  a discus- 
sion of  the  National  Reformers  gives  qualified  approval  to  their  scheme  of  a 
homestead  lav;.  Five  months  later,  he  comes  forth  with  a whole-hearted  vindica- 
tion of  the  movement  in  the  following  editorial. 

(62)  "The  freedom  of  the  Public  Lands  to  actual  settlers  and  the 
limitation  of  future  acquisition  of  land  to  some  reasonable  amount  are  measures 
v/hich  seen  to  us  vitally  necessary  to  the  ultimate  emancipation  of  labor  from 
thralldom  and  misery.  What  is  mainly  v/anted  is  that  each  nan  shall  have  a 
chance  to  earn,  and  than  an  assurance  of  the  just  fruits  of  his  labors.  We  must 
achieve  these  results  yet;  we  can  do  it.  Every  new  labor-saving  invention  is  a 
new  argument,  an  added  necessity  for  it.  And  so  long  as  the  laboring  class  must 
live  by  working  for  others,  v/hile  others  are  striving  to  live  luxuriously  and 
amass  wealth  out  of  the  fruits  of  such  labor,  so  long  the  abuses  and  sufferings 
now  complained  of  must  continue  to  exist  or  frequently  reappear.  We  must  go  to 
the  root  of  the  evil." 

The  influence  of  Greeley  in  promoting  the  cause  of  free  land  can 
hardly  be  estimated.  Many  readers  of  the  Weekly  Tribune  looked  upon  it  as  a kind 
of  political  bible . "In  the  homes  of  the  wage-earners  of  the  East  and  the  set- 
tlers' cabins  of  the  West  it  was  prized  and  cherished."  (63)  A western  editor, 
writing  in  1853,  said,  "The  influence  of  The  Tribune  upon  public  opinion  is 
greater  than  its  conductors  claim  for  it.  Its  Isms  with  scarcely  an  exception, 
though  the  people  may  reject  thorn  at  first,  yet  ripen  into  strength  insensibly. 

A few  years  since,  the  Tribune  commenced  the  advocacy  of  the  principle  of  Free 


. 

■ 


. 


. 


I 


-32- 


Lc.nd  for  the  Landless.  The  first  bill  presented  upon  that  subject  by  Mr.  Greeley 
was  hooted  out  of  that  body.  But  who  doubts  what  the  result  would  be  if  the 
people  of  the  whole  nation  had  the  right  to  vote  upon  the  question  today?" 

Effective  in  the  manner  of  its  appeal  was  "Vote  yourself  a farm," 
an  article  that  appeared  in  The  Workingman  for  January  24,  1846,  and  as  a circu- 
lar or  handbill  was  distributed  in  hundreds  of  thousands.  To  quote  some  of  its 
striking  passages:  "Are  you  an  American  citizen?  Then  you  are  joint  owner  of 

the  public  lands.  Why  not  take  enough  of  your  property  to  provide  yourself  a 
hone?  Why  not  vote  yourself  a farm?"  (64) 

"Remember  Poor  Richard's  saying:  'Now  I have  a sheep  and  a cow, 
everyone  bids  me  good  morrow.'  ....  The  bare  rights  to  a farm,  tho  you  should 
never  go  near  it,  v/ill  save  you  from  insult.  Therefore,  vote  yourself  a farm." 

"Are  you  a party  follower?  Then  you  have  long  enough  employed 
your  vote  to  the  benefit  of  scheming  office  seekers;  use  it  for  once  to  benefit 
yourself.  Vote  yourself  a farm." 

"Are  you  tired  of  slavery  - of  drudging  for  others  - of  poverty 
and  its  attendant  miseries?  Then,  vote  yourself  a farm." 

"Are  you  endowed  with  reason?  Then  you  must  know  that  your  right 
to  live  hereby  includes  the  right  to  a place  to  live  in  - the  right  to  a home. 
Assert  this  right  so  long  denied  mankind  by  feudal  robbers  and  their  attorneys. 
Vote  yourself  a farm." 

"Are  you  a believer  in  the  scriptures?  Then  assert  that  the  land 
is  the  Lord's  because  he  made  it.  Resist  then  the  blasphemers  who  exact  money 
for  his  work Vote  yourself  a farm." 

"Are  you  a man?  Then  assert  the  sacred  rights  of  man  - especially 
your  right  to  stand  upon  God's  earth  and  till  it  for  your  own  profit.  Vote 
yourself  a farm." 


-33- 


"Would  you  free  your  country  and  the  sons  of  toil  everywhere  from 
the  heartless,  irresponsible  mastery  of  the  aristocracy  of  avarice?  .... 

Vote  yourself  a farm." 

The  first  clause  of  a proposed  bill  for  Congress  appeared  in  Young 
America  in  September,  1348,  and  reads  as  follows:  An  act  to  establish  the  equal 

rights  to  the  use  of  the  land  and  its  natural  products;  to  afford  a refuge  to 
the  landless  population  of  the  United  States;  to  secure  homesteads  to  individual 
families  and  associations;  to  provide  for  the  increase  in  population;  to  make 
labor  the  master  instead  of  the  slave  of  capital,  and  to  perpetuate  the  republic. 

(6 5)  The  Industrial  Congress,  held  in  Boston  in  1846,  marks  the 
beginning  of  a series  of  such  meetings;  New  York  in  1847;  Philadelphia  in  1848; 
Cincinnati  in  1849;  Chicago  in  1850;  Albany  in  1851;  Washington  in  1852;  Wil- 
mington in  1853;  Trenton  in  1854;  Cleveland  in  1855, and  New  York  in  1856.  At 
each  of  these  the  land  question  proved  to  be  the  leading  subject  for  discussion. 

(66)  Another  factor  in  the  turning  of  attention  toward  the  public 
land  situation  and  that  helped  to  influence  public  sentiment  was  the  infusion, 
during  the  latter  part  of  this  period,  of  a great  number  of  German  and  Scandi- 
navian immigrants  into  our  population.  Anti- capitalistic  by  instinct  almost 
and  with  a deep  interest  in  the  land,  they  began  to  combat  existing  methods  of 
land  disposal.  The  Volks  Tribune  and  the  Social  Republic  played  no  small  part 
in  this  general  movement. 

With  all  this  agitation  by  social  reformers  in  the  East  supple- 
menting the  efforts  of  the  land  reformers  in  the  West,  it  is  small  wonder  that 
the  question  of  the  possible  significance  of  the  western  land  in  our  social  and 
economic  life  was  raised  from  obscurity  to  universal  recognition  and  concern. 

"The  Providence  'American'  called  it  the  most  important  subject  to  be  acted  on 
by  Congress.  The  Richmond  'Enquirer'  declared  that  'these  public  lands  are 


-34- 


beginning  to  present  some  of  the  most  serious  questions  which  have  ever  agitated 
our  public  councils.'  The  Philadelphia  Gazette  affirmed  that  the  disposition  of 
the  public  lands  was  the  most  dangerous  subject  of  legislation  before  Congress. 

In  the  New  York  'Evening  Post*  the  situation  was  described  as  follows:  'But  the 

public  lands  - the  public  lands  - this  is  the  exciting  theme  which  brings  every 
man  to  his  seat,  and  every  other  question  - tariff,  roads,  revenue,  education,  - 
all  insensibly  slid  into  this."'  (67) 

After  reviewing  in  this  way  a history  of  the  evolution  of  those 
factors  that  v/ould  make  for  the  promotion  of  retardation  of  the  settlement  of  the 
public  lends,  and  after  noting  also  the  coincidence  that  existed  in  the  time  of 
establishing  a favorable  condition  of  communication,  of  legislation,  and  of  pub- 
lic interest,  those  things  which  most  vitally  affected  the  movement,  it  might  be 
profitable  to  observe  what  change,  if  any,  in  distribution  of  population  actually 
occurred.  The  following  figures  are  compiled  from  the  census  reports  for  the 
years  indicated  and  show  the  population  of  fourteen  states  of  the  eastern  group 
as  it  varies  during  the  period  and  also  fourteen  states  falling  within  the  public 
domain.  Of  particular  interest  and  significance  is  the  change  to  be  observed  in 
the  rates  of  growth  of  population  that  occurs  between  East  and  Y/est  in  the  de- 
cade of  the  thirties. 


-35- 

i8oo 

1810 

1820 

1830 

1840 

1850 

i860 

The  We 

Ohio  45 

230 

581 

937 

1519 

1950 

2339 

Indiana  5 

24 

147 

343 

685 

988 

1350 

Illinois  

12 

55 

157 

476 

851 

1711 

Missouri  

20 

66 

140 

383 

682 

1182 

Kentucky  220 

406 

564 

687 

779 

982 

1x55 

Tennessee  105 

261 

422 

681 

829 

1002 

1109 

Alabama  

127 

309 

590 

771 

964 

Mississippi  ....  8 

40 

75 

136 

375 

606 

791 

Wisconsin  

30 

305 

775 

Michigan  ....... 

4 

8 

31 

212 

397 

749 

Louisiana  

96 

153 

215 

352 

517 

708 

Texas  

212 

604 

Arkansas  

30 

97 

209 

435 

Minnesota  

6 

172 

1800 

1810 

1820 

1830 

1840 

0 

00 

•H 

i860 

The  East 

New  York  589 

959 

1372 

1918 

2428 

3097 

3880 

Pennsylvania  . . . 602 

810 

1049 

1348 

1724 

2311 

2906 

Virginia 880 

974 

1065 

1211 

1239 

1421 

1598 

Massachusetts  ..  422 

472 

523 

610 

737 

994 

1231 

Georgia 162 

252 

340 

516 

691 

906 

1057 

North  Carolina  . 476 

555 

638 

737 

753 

869 

992 

South  Carolina  . 245 

415 

502 

581 

594 

668 

703 

Maryland  341 

380 

407 

447 

470 

583 

687 

New  Jersey  211 

245 

277 

320 

373 

489 

672 

Connecticut  ....  251 

261 

275 

297 

309 

370 

460 

New  Hampshire  . . 182 

214 

244 

269 

284 

317 

326 

Vermont  154 

235 

235 

280 

291 

314 

315 

Rhode  Island  ...  69 

76 

83 

97 

108 

147 

174 

Delaware  64 

72 

72 

76 

78 

21 

112 

Population  by  states 

for 

the  years  indicated.  (000  omitted) 

Table  shov/ing  the  comparative 

growth 

in  population  of 

the 

East  and  West 

from  l800  to  i860. 

1800 

1810 

1820 

1830 

1840 

1850 

i860 

East  ....  4650 

5910 

7082 

8707 

10079 

12577 

15111 

West  ....  393 

1093 

2190 

3666 

6347 

9578.  . . 

14044 

(000  omitted) 

] Table  showing  the  c 

omparative 

gains 

in  population  of 

the 

East  and  West 

from 

1800  to  i860 

1800-10 

10-2C 

20-30 

30-40 

40-90 

50-60 

East  ....  X260 

1172 

1625 

1372 

2498 

253* 

West  ....  867 

1079 

1476 

2681 

3.231 

4466 

(000  omitted) 

-36- 


Chapter  V 

What  then  has  been  the  relation  between  the  public  lands  and  the 
labor  problem  in  the  thirty  year  period  from  I83O  to  i860?  Were  conditions  such 
as  to  vindicate  the  popular  idea  that  where  abundant  public  land  exists  oppres- 
sive laboring  conditions  and  wide-spread  poverty  are  obviated?  A study  of  the 
economic  and  social  conditions  that  characterized  the  industrial  sections  of  the 
country  in  1830,  as  pointed  out  before,  revealed  a condition  of  general  distress 
that  was  scarcely  surpassed  during  the  depression  of  I9O7-8,  when  public  land 
had  practically  ceased  to  be  available. 

In  an  attempt  to  vindicate  the  popular  conception  of  this  relation- 
ship, it  is  scarcely  sufficient  to  show  that  the  normal  effect  of  the  land  v/as 
counteracted  by  those  conditions  of  transportation,  legislation  and  general 
apathy  that  rendered  than  unaccessible  to  the  masses.  Since  it  has  been  shown 
that  these  conditions  did  not  always  obtain,  one  should  be  able  to  show  con- 
ditions bettering  in  proportion  to  the  extent  to  which  these  hindrances  were  re- 
moved. This,  we  believe,  can  in  a measure  be  done. 

It  is  significant,  first  of  all,  that  there  was  a turning  from 
those  practical  demands  which  v/ere  charact eristic  of  the  decade  and  a half  fol- 
lowing 1825  and  which  had  to  do  mostly  with  decent  relief  from  the  general  suf- 
fering, to  indulge  in  the  "hot  air'*  of  the  forties,  that  period  of  "unbounded 
loquacity,"  which  found  expression  in  transcendentalism,  abolition,  and  such 
idealistic  ventures  as  the  Brook  Farm  experiment.  (68) 

In  addition  to  this  type  of  thinking  which  does  not  reflect  the 
grim  poverty  of  the  earlier  period,  there  seems  also  a lack  of  that  dissatis- 
faction and  unrest  that  characterized  the  labor  history  of  the  early  part  of  the 
century.  At  no  time,  certainly  during  the  latter  part  of  this  period,  even  dur- 
ing tne  depression  of  1857 , would  that  well-known  observation  of  1835  that 


-37- 


" strikes  were  all  the  fashion"  apply. 

More  convincing  still  perhaps  would  be  a study  of  the  movement  of 
wages  and  prices  throughout  the  period.  The  progress  in  money  wages  is  indi- 
cated by  the  following  table.  (69) 


Compari 

son 

of  wages  by 

periods:  1830  and 

i860 

Av. 

daily  wage 

Av.  daily  wage 

Percentage 

for 

period 

i"or  period 

of  increase 

end 

,ing  I83O 

ending  i860 

or  decrease 

Agricultural  laborers  ... 

$0.83 

11.01 

25.8  % 

Elacksmiths  

1.12 

I.69 

50.9 

Carpenters  

1.07 

2.03 

87.7 

Clock  makers  

1.29 

1.96 

51.5 

Clothing  makers  

1.27 

1.43 

12.6 

Cotton  mill  operatives  .. 

.886 

1.03 

16.3 

Glass  makers  

1.13 

2.96 

161.9 

Harness  makers  

1.13 

1.65 

46 

Laborers  

.756 

.975 

22 

Masons  

1.22 

1.53 

25.4 

Metal  workers  

1.23 

1.35 

9.8 

Millwright 

1.21 

1.66 

37.2 

Painters  

1.25 

1.85 

48 

Paper  mill  operatives  ... 

.666 

1.17 

75.7 

Printers  

1.25 

1.75 

40 

Ship  & boat  builders  .... 

1.40 

3.65 

160 

Shoemakers  

1.06 

1.70 

60 

Tanners  and  curriers  .... 

1.13 

1.67 

47.8 

Wooden  goods  workers  .... 

1.25 

1.72 

37.6 

Woolen  mill  operatives  .. 

.946 

.873 

- 7.7 

It  is  not,  however,  the  rate  of  money  wages  that  most  nearly  con- 
cerns the  workman,  but  rather  the  real  wage.  If  this  increase  in  money  wages 


has  been  more  than  counterbalanced  by  an  increase  in  prices,  the  workman' s real 
wage  has,  of  course,  declined.  In  an  effort  to  show  the  variation  of  the  real 
wage,  a table  of  prices  paid  for  the  leading  articles  of  household  consumption 
during  the  same  period  is  shown  also. 


-38- 


Compariaon  of  prices  by  periods:  1830  and  i860 


(69) 


Article 

Basis 

Av.  price 
for  period 
ending  1830 

Av.  price 
for  period 
ending  i860 

Percentage 
of  increase 
or  decrease 

Apples 

bu. 

$ .439 

§ .995 

126.7  % 

Beans 

qt . 

.085 

.088 

3.5 

Corn 

bu. 

.817 

.992 

21.4 

Potatoes 

bu. 

.369 

.86 

133.1 

Boots 

pr. 

4.75 

2.21 

-53.5 

Shoos 

pr. 

1.26 

I.09 

-13.5 

Slippers 

pr. 

.935 

.945 

1.1 

Butter 

lb. 

.186 

.262 

40.9 

Cheese 

lb. 

.089 

.117 

31.5 

Eggs 

doz . 

.15 

.22 

46.7 

Milk 

qt . 

.044 

.052 

18.2 

Cotton  cloth 

yd. 

.21 

.118 

-43.8 

Flannel 

yd. 

.57 

.405 

-28.9 

Linen 

yd. 

.453 

.531 

17.2 

Flour 

bbl. 

7.08 

8.92 

26 

Indian  meal 

lb. 

.016 

.021 

31.3 

Coffee 

lb. 

.206 

.163 

-20.9 

Salt 

qt . 

.063 

.029 

-54 

Sugar 

lb. 

.16 

.12 

-25 

Tea 

lb. 

.825 

.529 

-35.9 

Beef 

lb. 

.076 

.126 

65.8 

Cork 

lb. 

.088 

.114 

29.5 

From  the  foregoing  comparison  it  appears  that  prices  have  increased 
to  a certain  extent,  but  not  uniformly.  Certain  staple  articles,  chiefly  those 
produced  under  the  factory  system. of  labor,  as  boots  and  shoes  and  cotton  and 
woolen  cloth,  dry  goods  and  dress  goods,  show  a constant  decline.  A fev;  of 
the  staple  groceries  also  have  declined,  while  flour,  fish  and  meal  have  risen. 

Consolidating  and  averaging  the  wages  shown  in  the  former  table, 
it  appears  that  for  those  occupations  compared  the  general  average  increase 
in  wages  for  the  decade  ending  i860,  as  compared  with  that  ending  in  I83O, 
is  52.3  percent.  Comparing  the  price  changes  of  the  same  period  by  a consoli- 
dation of  the  percentages  which  shov;  either  an  advance  or  a decline  in  price 
for  the  articles  represented  in  the  comparison,  the  general  average  percentage 
of  increase  is  found  to  be  9.6  percent.  If  averages  are  considered  rather  than 


-39- 

percentages,  the  average  increase  is  found  to  be  15.7.  The  mean  of  these  two, 
12.7  percent,  represents  perhaps  as  nearly  as  possible  the  increase  in  prices 
for  the  decade  ending  in  i860  with  that  ending  in  1830.  Without  budgets  show- 
ing the  expenses  of  workingpen,  the  percentage  of  increase  in  the  cost  of  living 
cannot,  of  course,  be  accurately  determined.  However,  a comparison  of  the 
two  advances,  that  of  wages  and  that  of  prices,  indicates  material  gain  on  the 
part  of  the  former  and  express  more  clearly  than  words  the  change  that  took 
place  in  the  period  from  I83O-6O  in  the  pecuniary  status  of  the  workingp&n. 

It  should  be  remembered  too  that  this  was  not  the  progress  simply 
of  a static  population.  The  population  of  the  United  States  had  increased  from 
12,866,020  in  I83O  to  31, 4-4-3, 321  in  i860,  a greater  percentage  of  growth  than 
during  any  other  thirty  year  period  in  our  national  history.  To  have  maintained 
our  standard  of  living  in  the  face  of  such  a rapid  increase,  a large  percentage 
of  which  represents  an  immigrant  population,  would  have  been  an  achievement,  had 
the  public  lands  not  furnished  a field  for  expansion.  To  have  raised  that 
standard  without  this  help  seems  almost  impossible.  They  played  a double  part. 
Not  only  did  they  furnish  field  for  expansion,  lessening  thus  the  possibility 
of  redundancy  of  labor  and  low  wages,  their  large  production  by  keeping  down  the 
cost  of  living  helped  to  boost  the  real  wage. 

If  it  were  possible  in  this  investigation  to  go  a step  farther  and 
compare  conditions  in  America  as  they  existed  during  this  period  with  those  of  a 
country  similar  in  all  respects  with  the  exception  of  the  existence  of  public 
lands,  the  relationship  might  be  judged  more  accurately.  Altho  such  ideal  con- 
ditions for  study  do  not  exist,  yet  some  comparisons  with  other  nations  less 
advantageously  situated  in  this  respect  may  not  be  without  merit.  The  following 
table  presenting  a comparison  of  wages  in  the  United  States,  England  and  France 
in  1825,  shows  that  even  then  with  immigration  into  the  public  lands  scarcely 


-40- 

begun,  that  the  condition  of  the  American  laborers  was  more  favorable  than  that 


of  their  European  brethren. 

Comparative  Wages  in  England.  France  and  U.  S.,  1828 


Employments 

Basis 

England 

France 

U.  S. 

Common  laborer  

day 

$0.74 

$0.37  -.40 

$1.00 

Carpenter  

day 

• 97 

.55  -.75 

1.45 

Mason  

day 

1.10 

.60-  ,80 

1.62 

Farm  laborer  (with  board)  ..... 

mo . 

6.50 

4.00-6.00 

8.00  - 

10. CO 

Domestic  (female  with  board)  .. 

v/k . 

• 67 

1.00  - 

1.50 

Machinists  & forgers  (best)  ... 

day 

1.54 

1.50  - 

1.75 

Machinists  & forgers  (ordinary) 

day 

1.10 

.92 

1.25  - 

1.42 

Mule  spinners  (cotton)  

day 

1.02 

.80  -.50 

1.08  - 

1.40 

Spinners  (woolen)  

dday 

• 94 

.40  -.50 

1.08 

Weavers  (on  hand  looms)  

day 

• 74 

.37  -.50 

.90 

Boys  (age  10  - 12)  

wk. 

1.30 

•85-1.00 

1.50 

Females  ( in  cotton  mills)  .... 

wk. 

1.96 

1.48-2.00 

2.00  - 

3.00 

Females  ( in  woolen  mills)  .... 

wk. 

1.56 

1.50 

2.50 

Complete  statistical  data 

for  this 

period  seems  to 

be  lacking  and 

so  some  dependence  must  be  placed  in  other  forms  of  evidence.  The  following  is 
a contemporary  description  of  conditions  in  England  as  they  prevailed  before 
the  Factory  Act  of  1832. 

"The  facts  we  collected  seemed  to  me  to  be  terrible,  almost  beyond 
belief,  Not  in  exceptional  cases,  but  as  a rule,  children  of  ten  years  old 
worked  regularly  fourteen  hours  a day  with  but  a half-hour  interval  for  the  mid- 
day meal,  which  was  eaten  in  the  factory.  In  the  fine-yarn  cotton  mills  they 
were  subjected  to  this  labor  in  a temperature  usually  exceeding  75  degrees. 

. . . . In  some  cases  we  found  that  greed  of  gain  had  impelled  the  mill  owners 
to  still  greater  extremes  of  inhumanity,  utterly  disgraceful  indeed  to  a civil- 
ized nation.  Their  mills  were  run  fifteen,  and  in  exceptional  cases  sixteen, 
hours  a day  with  a single  set  of  hands,  and  they  did  not  scruple  to  employ 

children  of  both  sexes  from  the  age  of  eight Most  of  the  overseers 

openly  carried  stout  leather  thongs,  and  we  frequently  saw  even  the  youngest 
children  severely  beaten In  some  of  the  factories  from  one-fourth 


-41- 


to  one- fifth  of  the  children  were  cripples  or  otherwise  deformed  or  permanently 
injured  by  excessive  toil,  sometimes  by  brutal  abuse."  (71) 

The  Niles  Register  for  April  21,  1832,  commenting  on  the  condition 
of  the  working  class,  says:  "We  have  several  times  alluded  to  the  amount  of 

wages  paid  in  England  and  severely  rebuked  a disposition  maintained  by  some  to 
reduce  the  working  people  of  the  United  States  to  the  same  horrible  conditions." 
(72)  Extracts  from  the  Manchester  advertiser  afforded  some  idea  of  the  price  of 
labor  in  the  neighborhood  of  Manchester.  A man  with  his  wife  and  two  children 
in  that  district  was  earning  9 s,  lOg-  d per  week;  another  man  with  a family  of 
nine  workers  was  cited  who  collectively  earned  20  s per  week.  While  it  is 
pointed  out  that  wages  may  not  have  been  quite  so  low  in  the  woolen  manufactur- 
ing districts,  the  supposition,  it  affirms,  is  that  there  was  little  difference 
in  the  laborers’  circumstances.  (73)  Webb  says  that  in  1831  the  boys  in  the 
Northumberland  nines  who  were  paid  by  the  day  were  kept  at  work  from  fourteen 
to  seventeen  hours  a day.  The  hewers,  however,  paid  by  the  ton  had  restricted 
theirs  to  ten  or  twelve  hours  each.  By  1837  "the  ten  hour  day  was  becoming 
generally  established.  Over  time,  however,  was  common,  and  half  holidays  on 
Saturday  was  unknown. 

So  far  as  the  money  wage  is  concerned,  conditions  on  the  Continent 
seem  to  have  been  even  worse.  "In  Saxony  a man  employed  at  his  own  loom  work- 
ing diligently  from  Monday  morning  until  Saturday  night,  from  five  o'clock  in 
the  morning  until  dusk  and  even  at  times  with  a lamp,  his  wife  assisting  him 
in  finishing  and  taking  the  work,  could  not  possibly  earn  more  than  about  sixty 
cents  per  week,  nor  could  one  who  had  three  children  aged  twelve  and  upwards, 
all  working  at  the  loom  as  well  as  himself,  and  his  wife  employed  in  doing  up 
the  work,  earn  more  than  $1.00  weekly.  (74) 

A wider  view  of  the  general  wage  level  of  foreign  countries  in 


42- 


1843  may  be  gotten  from  the  following  statistics  on  the  wages  of  common  laborers. 


France  

Germany 

. . . 4&  - 8 

II 

II 

North  Italy  . » , 

...3-4 

VI 

If 

Italy  

It 

II 

England  

...9-15 

II 

If 

Scotland 

...  8 

•1 

It 

Ireland  ....... 

...4-6 

II 

II 

Russia  ....... 

...3-5 

H 

tl 

Spain , . . 

...  3-6 

II 

II 

Portugal  . . . . . 

tl 

It 

Norway  

...3-5 

If 

If 

Sweden  ........ 

...2-5 

19 

II 

Engel  in  his  description  of  the  working  class  in  England  in  1844 
depicts  a depth  of  misery  that  is  widespread  and  certainly  beyond  anything  that 
America  ever  experienced.  Bowley  in  a more  scientific  treatment  of  wages  in 
the  United  Kingdom  says,  "The  study  of  the  period  from  1830  to  i860  has  been 
much  neglected.  In  its  wages,  the  cotton  industry  increased  about  two  shillings 
on  ten,  although  there  was  a falling  off  until  1845-8.  Building  and  town  arti- 
sans did  not  improve  their  earnings  by  so  large  a percentage.  The  wages  of  sea- 
men increased  over  ten  percent  between  1840  and  i860,  but  the  percent  of  in- 
crease between  I83O  and  1840  cannot  be  accurately  measured  except  for  one  part, 
when  it  appears  to  have  been  stationary.  Compositors'  wages  in  small  towns  in- 
creased rapidly  but  in  large  towns  were  stationary,  and  the  average  increase 
was  ten  percent;  those  of  agricultural  laborers  increased  from  10  s to  11s  7 d, 
and  miners'  diminished."  (78) 

Fragmentary  as  are  the  data  available,  it  seems  safe  to  conclude 
that  neither  in  money  nor  in  real  wages  did  England  or  any  continental  country 
keep  pace  with  the  upward  movement  of  the  wage  level  that  characterized  the 
whole  of  the  period  in  America,  and  never  at  any  time  during  the  period  was  the 
condition  of  the  laboring  classes  in  America  so  miserable  as  at  various  times 
and  places  in  Europe.  The  claim  that  the  public  lands  are  responsible  for  the 


I 


I 


< 


i 


i 


1 


f 


-43- 


v/hole  of  the  variation  in  favor  of  the  country  where  they  existed,  could  not 
perhaps  be  easily  substantiated.  That  they  played  some  part,  however,  certainly 
no  one  will  attempt  to  deny. 

In  conclusion  then  it  seems  that  one  might  safely  say  that  the 
assertions  as  to  the  relation  which  exists  between  abundant  land  and  the  wel- 
fare of  laboring  classes,  quoted  in  the  beginning  of  the  thesis,  are  on  the 
whole  true.  In  the  period  from  I83O  to  i860  the  public  lands  certainly  exerted 
an  uplifting  influence  on  laboring  conditions  in  America,  functioning  not  how- 
ever as  a safety  valve  in  that  the  moment  depression  was  felt  or  industrial 
conditions  became  oppressive,  escape  was  made  to  the  "wilderness , " the  impres- 
sion which  writers,  as  has  been  observed,  often  tend  to  convey.  The  coordina- 
tion of  those  physical,  political  and  psychic  conditions  which  would  be  neces- 
sary for  such  deft  manipulation  of  population,  seems  scarcely  probable  under 
any  circumstance.  That  it  did  not  exist  in  the  United  States  was  evidenced  in 
the  fact  that  poverty  and  unemployment  became  serious  problems  at  intervals 
during  the  period  from  I83O  to  i860,  and  by  the  further  fact  that  population 
movement  failed  to  synchronize  in  any  definite  fashion  with  these  periods  of 
depression.  It  was  not  the  immediate  or  periodic  effect  but  rather  the  long 
time  effect  of  the  public  lands  that  deserve  most  recognition.  Absorbing, as 
they  did  in  a more  or  less  regular  and  gradual  manner,  the  redundant  population 
of  the  industrial  sections,  they  created  a general  condition  of  supply  of  labor 
that  gave  the  wage  level  an  upward  tendency  and  without  doubt  was  in  a large 
measure  responsible  for  the  fact  that  the  scale  of  wages  which  then  prevailed 
was  the  highest  in  the  world. 


-44- 


REFERENCES 

1.  Annals  of  the  Fourth  Congress,  First  Session,  page  12. 

2.  Progress  and  Poverty,  page  260. 

3.  Callender,  Economic  History  of  the  U.  S. 

4.  Annals  of  Congress,  reprinted  in  Bogart  and  Thompson  Readings  in 

Economic  History,  page  455. 

5.  J.  R.  Commons,  History  of  Labor  in  the  U.  S.  Vol.  1,  page  4. 

6.  Hart,  History  of  the  U.  S.  Vol.  14,  page  68. 

7.  McMaster,  History  of  the  U.  S.  Vol.  5,  page  121. 

8.  Documentary  History  of  the  American  Industrial  Society.  Vol.  1,  page  170. 

9.  Commons,  History  of  Labor  in  the  United  States.  Vol.  1,  page  384. 

10.  Documentary  History  of  the  American  Industrial  Society.  Vol.  5,  page  33. 

11.  Montgomery,  Cotton  Manufacture  in  Great  Britain  and  America. 


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21.  Turner,  Rise  of  the  New  West. 

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24.  Turner,  Ri3e  of  the  New  West,  page  82. 


-45- 


25.  Johnson,  History  of  Domestic  and  Foreign  Commerce.  Vol.  1,  page  206. 

26.  Channing,  History  of  the  U.  S.  Vol.  b,  page  106. 

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31.  Johnson,  History  of  Domestic  and  Foreign  Commerce.  Vol.  1,  page  220. 

32.  Turner,  Rise  of  the  New  West,  pages  34-97. 

33.  Johnson,  History  of  Domestic  and  Foreign  Commerce.  Vol.  1,  pages  221-2. 

34.  Dunbar,  History  of  Travel  in  America.  Vol.  2,  page  656  . 

35.  Sato,  Land' Question  in  the  U.  S.,  page  138. 

36.  Hinsdale,  The  Old  North-West,  page  255. 

37.  Treat,  The  National  Land  System,  page  16. 

38.  Cutler,  Vol.  1,  page  133. 

39.  State  Papers,  Public  Domain,  page  888. 

40.  Hinsdale,  The  Old  North-West,  page  301. 

41.  Sato,  The  Land  Question  in  the  U.  S.,  page  138. 

42.  Treat,  The  National  Land  System,  page  375. 

43.  Laws  of  the  U.  S.,  Vol.  2,  page  533  . 

44.  The  Land  Question  in  the  U.  S.,  page  143. 

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46.  State  Papers,  Public  Lands,  Vol.  2. 

47.  U.  S.  Statutes.  Vol.  3,  page  866. 

48.  The  Land  Question  in  the  U.  S.,  page  199. 

49.  Stephenson,  Political  History  of  the  Public  Lands. 
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51.  Sato,  The  Land  Question  in  the  U.  S.,  page  120. 


t 


-46- 


52.  Treat,  The  National  Land  System,  page  372. 

53.  Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine.  Vol.  2,  page  119. 

54.  Chicago  Tribune,  Feb.  3,  1859. 

55.  Stephenson,  Political  History  of  the  Public  Lands,  page  101. 

56.  New  York  Tribune,  July  17,  1847. 

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58.  Wellington,  Political  History  of  the  Public  Lands,  page  6. 

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74.  Niles  Register,  Jan.  25,  1842. 

75.  Niles  Register,  Nov.  11,  1843. 

76.  Eowley,  Wages  in  the  United  Kingdom,  page  125. 


-47- 


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New  York 

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New  York 

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Rise  of  the  New  West 
New  York 

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Labor  in  the  Longest  Reign 
London 

G.  Richards,  1879 
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Political  and  Sectional  Influence  of 
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History  of  Wages  and  Prices  1752-1860 
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Edw.  Young,  1875 


